


Best Served Cold

by Hodgeheg002



Category: Thunderbirds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27242866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hodgeheg002/pseuds/Hodgeheg002
Summary: Gordon wasn’t normally allowed to pull pranks on people other than his brothers, a rule instated when he had been eight years old and bored at school. But when Fischler makes Alan- over exhausted and mildly concussed- cry, an exception is made.Ft John and his computer hacking skills for a remote lesson in revenge is best served cold.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47





	Best Served Cold

Thunderbird Three docked to Five with a jolt, Alan’s usual finesse missing and making for a slightly more rough handling of the ship than normal. As soon as this was complete John’s hands were flying over the controls automatically to stabilise the air pressure between the two birds, wanting to get on board as soon as possible. The rescue should have been a straight forward pick up mission from a ship that was in extreme distress, but as always when the rescue involved a certain Langstrom Fischler, it had gone sideways pretty quickly. Alan had just finished getting everyone onto Thunderbird Three when the distressed ship had exploded, sending Alan crashing into the side of his ‘bird. Luckily, the armour on Alan’s uniform had prevented any serious damage, but there had still been a knock to the head that had John wincing from where he was monitoring the rescue from Five.

The airlock opened and John was pulling himself through the hatch and into the hull of Thunderbird Three, focused solely on getting to his brother. He had almost made it to the cockpit when Alan appeared, managing to stumble even without gravity. John reached out and snagged him before he could hurt himself further, holding Alan’s chin and gently tilting it so that he could see the injury. He gave a low whistle.

“That’s quite the bump, Al. Have to get Virgil and Grandma to check it over when we get home.”

“‘S fine,” Alan slurred, arm flinging out in a wild gesture. John’s lips pursed and his eyebrow raised in disagreement, but didn’t push the issue, instead gently herding him back to the cockpit. It took Alan longer then it probably should have to realise that John had strapped him into the co-pilot’s seat, his older brother having disengaged from Thunderbird Five and started on the trajectory back to Earth. Alan blinked lethargically, struggling to come up with the complaint that was teasingly out of reach in his mind, and when his eyes opened again it was to John snapping his fingers in front of Alan’s face, expression pinched with concern.

“Don’t fall asleep yet, Alan. Not until we get back and you’ve been checked over.”   
  


“‘M tired,” Alan complained, batting John’s fingers away from his face.

“I know, but you need to stay awake. You’re my co-pilot, right? I need you to help me. You fly Three more often than I do, I need you to tell me what to do so I don’t scratch her.”

“Don’t you dare,” Alan mumbled, but sat a little straighter and gave John instructions. John took them good-naturedly, even though the closer they got back to Earth the more slurred and delayed they got, until finally they were breaking through the Earth’s atmosphere and preparing for the handover of the rescuees to Two. Virgil and Gordon came to meet them, Virgil examining Alan with a critical eye. 

“Straight to Grandma when you get home, okay?” Virgil said eventually. John answered for Alan.

“Of course. Scott back yet?”

“Should be. Hope so. He was having kittens over the comms,” Gordon groused, and John mirrored his grimace. 

“Excuse me,” drawled a nasally voice, causing the four brothers to turn towards the source of the noise. “But are you quite done? Some of us have actual work to do, having been dragged out of our ship wholly unnecessarily.”

Fischler himself had come to find them, arms crossed tightly over his chest, foot tapping impatiently.

“Excuse me?” Gordon asked in disbelief. Fischler seemed impervious to the suddenly freezing looks that were being shot in his direction.

“When are we leaving. This whole experience has been wholly unnecessary, and if it wasn’t for him-“ Fischler pointed accusingly at Alan- “I would still be up in space and more importantly, would still have a ship. Maybe you shouldn’t have such inexperienced members on your team, when it’s quite clear they don’t know what they’re doing.” Fischler’s mouth twisted into a cruel sneer, and there was a small gasp from Alan. 

“I think,” John growled, taking a step forward in icy fury, “that maybe you should go back to the hold. I’m sure the GDF will be very interested in discovering that you were operating in space. After all, hasn’t your licence been revoked?”

Fischler flushed red, but did not back down. “It’s been reinstated. Maybe he should be the one with the revoked space licence,” he retorted, jabbing his finger at Alan again, before turning on his heel and stalking away. There was a slightly stunned silence, which was broken by a small sob from behind Gordon, John and Virgil, who had all moved in front of their youngest brother to form a line of defence from the irate Fischler.

The sob snapped the three into action, turning round immediately to comfort Alan; the combination of adrenaline comedown, confusion from his injury and general post-mission exhaustion had resulted in him dissolving into tears in front of them despite his desperate attempts to stem the flow.

“I’m a bad pilot?” He asked in a stuttering voice.

“No, Allie, you’re an incredible pilot,” Virgil tried to reassure. “If you weren’t, then Scott wouldn’t let you fly Thunderbird Three.”

This seemed to have the opposite effect to what Virgil had originally intended.

“Scott’s going to stop me from piloting Three?” Alan asked, bordering on hysterical. Virgil looked aghast; John just sighed and curled an arm around Alan’s shoulders.

“He’s not going to stop you from flying Three. C’mon, let’s get you home. We’ll see you guys later,” John added over his shoulder as he gently led Alan back to the security of Thunderbird Three. Virgil shuffled awkwardly, but Gordon grinned his terrifying, evil smirk that only came out when he was plotting.

“Gordon?”

“Fischler’s gonna pay for that. No one’s allowed to make Alan cry. Gonna prank him so hard he won’t know what’s hit him…” Gordon trailed off, a gleefully sadistic note tinting his tone. Virgil glanced back in the direction of the rescuees, and for once decided not to try and dissuade Gordon from his scheming.

***

Much later, after Alan had been bandaged and fussed over and bundled into bed by Scott and Grandma Tracy, there was a soft knock on Gordon’s door. Gordon frowned as he bounded across his room to open it, a frown that deepened when he saw John standing on the other side. His brothers tended to give Gordon a wide berth when he was plotting, not wanting to draw attention to themselves in case they attracted the line of fire to them, whilst John would retreat to the furthest point from the villa until an all clear was sent to him- often this involved heading up to Thunderbird Five as soon as the word ‘plot’ was mentioned. It was unheard of for John to knock on Gordon’s door in the middle of a plotting session, and Gordon was even less prepared for the question that followed.

“Can I help?”

“Help- John?”

“With your plot.”

“Um… I guess…  _ why _ ?”

“He made Alan cry,” John said simply, and Gordon suddenly understood. There was something fundamentally wrong about making their baby brother cry, and those feelings were something that united all four older brothers. It was the reason that Scott had, for once, not questioned the evil gleam in Gordon’s eye when Thunderbird Two had returned, why Virgil had not tried to dissuade him from his scheming, and why, apparently, John was not only willing to stay on the Island during the plotting events, but offer his assistance. Gordon grinned. John, when he wanted to be, could be even more sadistic in his revenge than Gordon. It took a lot to annoy John to the extent of retaliation, but Gordon knew of a few circumstances that had provoked John’s ire sufficiently for action and those people responsible were still feeling the effects. Of all his brothers, Gordon was most wary about pissing John off. 

In this circumstance, however, John could prove to be the best asset.

“Of course. Come on in.” 

Gordon stood aside and let John into his room, watching as John delicately stepped over the threshold and perched awkwardly on the bed. Gordon jumped onto the other side of the bed, reaching out for his holo-notepad, and manipulated it so that John could see the plans he had made so far. John peered at them, twisting on the bed so he was more comfortable.

“What do you think?” Gordon asked, breaking the silence that had started to stretch.

“Well… how about this..” John started to explain his idea, and Gordon started to grin. 

***

Fischler shivered in his office, rubbing his hands together to try and gain some form of warmth from the friction. He didn’t know why his offices had become so called, what exactly had happened to the temperature controls, but whatever it was, it was not something that seemed to be fixed. He had yelled and raged at his employees, forcing them to come up with patches and fixes for the control panels, but nothing seemed to be working. They had managed to narrow it down to a fault in the coding, rather than the hardware, but that was as far as they got and Fischler was seriously contemplating a round of firing and redundancies to get his displease across. If they couldn’t figure out what it was that had caused the climate control to decide on Antarctic conditions, then he wasn’t going to continue paying them no matter how pitiful the wages already were.

It didn’t matter how deep his ire was, though, because  _ he _ didn’t know how to fix it, and as a result he was subjected to shivering in his office, wrapped up in a thick winter coat, hat, scarf and gloves whilst an ineffective portable heater unearthed from who knows where teased at spitting out warmth with its red glowing light, but was astounding in its lack of ability. Fischler stabbed vindictively at his computer, looking up holidays in the Bahamas or the Seychelles or somewhere equally warm and relaxing.

Too bad that two brothers, united in their desire for revenge, were busy snickering away as they tracked his research and plotted the next stage of their revenge.

As the idiom said, revenge was best served cold.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this in April. It took this long to finish, but works quite nicely as a birthday fic for John.


End file.
